INDIANAPOLIS—While the Nationwide and Sprint Cup cars went through technical inspection Friday, there were no stock cars on the track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

It was strange day for a NASCAR weekend, and another sign that NASCAR and IMS are trying to find ways to bring back some excitement to Indy and the Brickyard 400 weekend.

For the first time, the Nationwide Series will compete at the track along with the Sprint Cup Series this weekend. That series practiced Thursday and will race Saturday. On Friday, the Grand-Am Series, NASCAR’s sports-car arm, took center stage to give the track racing on each day of the weekend instead of just practice and qualifying on Friday.

Why the move?

It’s part of the effort by one of the world’s most famous racetracks to restore the luster it once shared between IndyCar and NASCAR.

According to NASCAR estimates, the 2005 Brickyard 400 attracted 280,0000 fans and then an 270,000 the next two years. With the downturn in the economy, attendance started to drop—to an estimated 240,000 in 2008, 180,000 in 2009, 140,000 in 2010 and 138,000 in 2011.

According to track officials, this year’s tickets sales are tracking close to last year's, and they expect about 200,000 fans for the entire three-day weekend.

Still, that pales in comparison to the crowds Indy attracted for the NASCAR races in the 1990s through 2005.

“It is disappointing,” said four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon. “As we've seen, many times over the last couple of years, many different factors weigh in as to why the fans fill the stands at some tracks and don't at others.

“I would think Indianapolis would be one of those tracks that a lot of people typically travel to. When you have that many grandstands, it's not just everybody in Indiana filling it up. It's other people traveling from further out. And, it's expensive to travel these days with gas prices and hotel prices, and everything else.”

The additional races are designed to try to excite a diverse auto racing fan base in Indiana and throughout the Midwest.

“It may not be on par with 19 years ago when we first came here, but certainly (this weekend) has a lot of energy to it,” NASCAR president Mike Helton said. “We’re excited about the format for the weekend.”

It’s unlikely a new format alone will double the attendance figures and fill the more than 250,000 grandstand seats and an infield that can hold tens of thousands more inside the 2.5-mile track.

“Those types of discussions are more common now than they were even a year and a half ago,” IMS spokesman Doug Boles told the Business Journal. “One consideration is it would allow us to get fans out of the heat of the day.”

Not only has the economy likely hurt attendance, but a tire debacle in 2008 when drivers could run only 10-12 laps before the tires blew out forced NASCAR to throw competition caution flags at similar intervals.

Combine that with the fact that passing is difficult on the narrow paper-clip-shaped track, where fuel mileage tends to be an issue, and it’s pretty clear NASCAR has some obstacles at Indy.

“It's still a two-and-a-half-mile track that's flat and the corners are very short, so it puts a lot of emphasis on getting good track position,” said three-time Cup champion Tony Stewart, an Indiana native. “If you can get a car that drives well, you can drive in traffic there just like anywhere else.

“It's just always such a momentum track. If you're off a little bit, you're off a lot.”

When NASCAR first raced at Indianapolis in 1994, Stewart wasn’t a fan of stock cars racing on the hallowed grounds of Indy. He felt, like many others, that only the Indianapolis 500 should be held there.

“I was one of those guys that when I watched the first Cup test at Indy, I got pretty upset about it,” said Stewart, a former IndyCar star and a two-time winner of NASCAR’s Brickyard 400. “I was like, this is the home of the Indy 500 and that's all that should be here.”

But after NASCAR arrived, then came Formula One and motorcycles. Formula One no longer races at Indianapolis but motorcycles still do, and now Nationwide cars and Grand-Am cars will join the action.

“After a while, after the first year, I started watching a lot more, and started wrapping my arms around it,” Stewart said. “It was really neat to see so many different disciplines at the highest levels coming here to race.”

Sam Hornish, who won the 2006 Indianapolis 500, said it was a little unfair to compare the Indy 500, which has appeared to have a little bit of a revitalization in recent years, to the Brickyard 400.

“The NASCAR (cars) belong here,” Hornish said. “NASCAR’s following is huge. The racing is great. Are these cars particularly suited for racing at Indianapolis? Probably not as much as the Indy cars are, but for the amount of downforce these cars have with the tires and horsepower and things like that, I think it puts on a pretty good show and they definitely belong here.”

Chip Ganassi won both the Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400 in 2010. They both were big wins.

“When NASCAR came here, it became one of the great races,” Ganassi said. “I think it just raised … the profile of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and introduced it to a whole other fan, which we're all clamoring for fans.”

NASCAR would like to see more fans Sunday than they have seen the last few years.